


Keep It Safe (it's in your hands)

by goldfwish



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (kind of), Fluff, Harry Potter Epilogue Compliant, M/M, Song Lyrics, Waltzing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 19:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18430652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfwish/pseuds/goldfwish
Summary: It’d been years, and Draco Malfoy looked the same, except he didn’t, and with every small difference Harry found, his desire to trace his fingers over every wrinkle and crevice grew, an observer reverently running their hands over a marble statue weathered with time.Harry and Draco dance at a Ministry function.





	Keep It Safe (it's in your hands)

**Author's Note:**

> Song: Movement by Hozier
> 
> This was originally supposed to be for Drarryland, but then I went and turned it into something else entirely.
> 
> Thank you [Etalice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etalice/pseuds/Etalice) for the amazing-as-always beta!

I still watch you when you're groovin'  
As if through water from the bottom of a pool  
You're movin' without movin'  
And when you move, I'm moved  
You are a call to motion  
There, all of you a verb in perfect view  
Like Jonah on the ocean  
When you move, I'm moved

It was a shock, seeing him standing among all the pressed collars and dainty ruffled hems worn by people of various ministerial importance in the cobbled courtyard. They all laughed and conversed in soft, careful voices, clinking glasses against each other. Fairy lights and fireflies cast the area in a soft golden hue, the stars above mingling with the cool summer night’s air to create a space that exuded the quiet energy of socialization.

He was wearing robes that were just a touch shy of being a tailored Muggle suit, and he looked incredible. Of course he did; Harry would never have expected anything less. 

It’d been years, and Draco Malfoy looked the same, except he didn’t, and with every small difference Harry found, his desire to trace his fingers over every wrinkle and crevice grew, an observer reverently running their hands over a marble statue weathered with time. 

He was dancing with Astoria, their gentle movements guided by the tinkling music played by the small orchestra in the corner. They looked utterly at ease with each other, swaying like the weeping tears of a willow tree in the embrace of a soft breeze. If the papers were to be believed, they’d amicably divorced in just the past year. But in such a tender moment, Harry felt like an intruder. 

Astoria was beautiful in her form fitting dress, vibrant under the dark, inky sky. But Draco… Draco was the moon itself. He was incandescence, illumination on the darkest of nights. A supernova, only brightening further the longer Harry watched.

He glowed under the fairy lights, his skin shining and his eyes sparkling, and when he turned on his heel just so, the grey of his irises _gleamed_. It lured Harry in, a beacon from a lighthouse, calling out to its sailors like the most alluring siren’s song.

There was nothing Harry wanted more in that moment than to dance with Draco under the stars.

When you move  
I'm put to mind of all that I wanna be  
When you move  
I could never define all that you are to me

Draco was unattainable. It was obvious in the way he moved. In the turn of his hands when he spoke, in the flex of his legs when he walked. It told the world _don’t get too close_ , or else you’d be cut, left to bleed on the floor, scrabbling to cover your exposed edges.

So it surprised him when Draco left Astoria’s side, leaving her to continue talking with a woman he vaguely recognized as being from the Games and Sports Department, and approached Harry, his shoulders set and his face wearing a determined expression. 

They were in the middle of the courtyard, next to the fountain charmed to spout water that bubbled and fizzed in its basin. Harry watched the journey of the bubbles, the tiny pockets of air floating up, up, up until they reached the surface and disappeared. And when Draco reached out a hand to lightly touch Harry’s forearm, he wished he could be one of those bubbles, floating away to never be seen again. 

He wished for it, because Draco made his blood fizz and sizzle just the same as the water in the fountain, made his head spin and his feet tap in nervousness, made him want to take Draco by the hand and spin them around and around until they couldn’t see anything but each other, until the dizziness of their dance canceled out the dizziness in Harry’s head. 

But instead of all that, Harry simply looked into Draco’s eyes and tried not to stumble as they navigated conversation, polite and distant. 

When you move  
I can recall somethin' that's gone from me  
When you move  
Honey, I'm put in awe of somethin' so flawed and free

Three glasses of wine later, and their conversation had turned from polite to cordial, from distant to companionable, from stilted to almost… friendly.

The stars went on twinkling, the glasses continued clinking, and the fireflies flickered in front of Harry’s eyes in time to the music, lighting up little points on Draco’s clothes like tiny dots of sunshine. He wondered if Draco was as warm as he looked. 

He was just about to give a retort to something Draco had said, something about the merits of sparkling water, when the event organizer, a bald man with soft features, clapped his hands loudly and announced a dance. The orchestra started an intimate waltz, everyone stepped onto the smooth stone of the dance floor, and suddenly they were the only ones left on the sidelines. A quick search found Astoria in the arms of the woman from earlier, her flowy robes brushing against Astoria’s exposed ankles. Harry looked to Draco, who was holding his hand out to Harry with a slight bow in his waist and mischief in his eyes.

And there was no choice, really. Draco already had Harry’s heart in his hands, holding it just out of reach as he led them across the courtyard. A taunt, a teasing game of keep-away. What was Harry supposed to do, except move in tandem with his captor, keep close in an effort to gain his composure back?

So he danced, spun in Draco’s arms, and wondered if Draco ever thought about dizziness and fizzing bubbles.

Move like grey skies  
Move like a bird of paradise  
Move like an odd sight come out at night

Draco really was born to fly, Harry thought as the dance gradually came to a stop. Draco was a bird gliding through the air on powerful, graceful wings. Wings that could take him up, up, up until he was left feeling breathless, in the skies where the air pressure was different and the rules of the land didn’t apply. Where Draco could drop him at any moment, leave him to fall into the unknown waters of the night.

For a moment Harry was pulled back to the fountain, with its floating bubbles, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be one of them anymore. Because if this is what it felt like to be floating, a terrible pounding in his chest where his heart should be, then he wasn’t sure he’d survive. His heart was in Draco’s hands now, and he had no choice but to hope that he’d keep it safe. Harry didn’t know what would be worse: if he destroyed it, or if he gave it back.

The night waxed on, and birds lamented poetry to the stars. He looked at Draco, and Draco looked back, and in his eyes was the moon. And Harry knew that his worries were unnecessary. Because as warmth filled his chest, stretching to reach the very tips of his fingers and toes, he realized that Draco would keep his heart safe, encased between the ever-steady rise and fall of his own lungs. And in return, Harry would keep Draco’s heart in his own chest, filling up the crevices and spaces left behind. 

So move me, baby  
Shake like the bough of a willow tree  
You do it naturally  
Move me, baby

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.  
> You can also find me on [tumblr](https://goldfwish.tumblr.com/)!


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